Abstract
The year 2013 was fifty years since the publication of Honest to God , by John A.T. Robinson (1919-1983), who was Bishop of Woolwich at the time. The book became a bestseller. The research question that gave rise to the present article is how relevant and sound its main ideas are for South Africa, in particular, and for his own church in 2016. This paper examines Robinson’s views from three perspectives, namely Christian and secular practical ethics, the recent history of the church, to which the Bishop belonged in England, and the contemporary South African situation, in particular. The paper argues that, five hundred years on, Robinson’s project of developing a Christian response to contemporary secular challenges remains valid in South Africa.
Highlights
This article’s main contribution to knowledge is that Bishop John Robinson’s sensational book Honest to God (1963) remains relevant in his own country and church, and in contemporary South Africa
Unlike previous studies of the impact of Honest to God that emphasized theological and church matters, this article is more interested in practical ethics and its implications for Christian practice and belief in South Africa and elsewhere
The central message of the book is a call for Christians to save their faith and their ethic from what Robinson regarded as a rising, naturalistic, secular world view that has no place for religion, by means of certain radical changes to how God and Christ are conceived
Summary
This article’s main contribution to knowledge is that Bishop John Robinson’s sensational book Honest to God (1963) remains relevant in his own country and church, and in contemporary South Africa In the book, he called for a radical restatement of Christian belief and ethical practice in response to powerful new ethical and social forces that challenged the church at the time. He wrote a short article for a book about the debate caused by Honest to God, explaining why he wrote the book, saying that what he wanted to do “was not to deny God in any sense, but put him back in the middle of life – where Jesus showed us he belonged” He added, at the end of the article, that he wanted “God to be as real for our modern secular, scientific world as he ever was for the ‘ages of faith’” (Edwards 1963:277, 279). Opening essay in that volume, called “A new stirring in English Christianity” (Edwards 1963:13-44)
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